


Natasha Romanov and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month In Which She Thought Tony Stark Was Her Soulmate

by NotQuiteHumanAnymore



Series: Soulmates AU [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Clint Barton is our lovable human disaster in this, F/F, IM2 compliant for the most part, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 04:36:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6456109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHumanAnymore/pseuds/NotQuiteHumanAnymore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As far as Natasha Romanov was concerned, she didn’t have a soulmate. It didn’t matter what the faded lines she covered with makeup every morning read, because she had never seen them, and never would.<br/>Or: the one where Nat doesn't "get" soulmates, but she knows she has some feelings for her boss</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natasha Romanov and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month In Which She Thought Tony Stark Was Her Soulmate

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I didn't want to go through the whole "Nat's from Legal" mess, so I just had Pepper hire her as an assistant from the get go.  
> This is for @thefactsofdemyx on tumblr

As far as Natasha Romanov was concerned, she didn’t have a soulmate. It didn’t matter what the faded lines she covered with makeup every morning read, because she had never seen them, and never would.

And no amount of cosmetic surgery could get them to go away.

They’d tried.

She’d been the only member of her Widow Troupe to manifest soulmate markings on her sixteenth birthday. (The one good thing that she’d gotten out of the soulmark burning itself into the skin on the back of her neck was that she now knew her birthday. And how old she really was.) She knew that they’d debated her termination, a Black Widow agent with a soulmate was a flight risk on a good day.

There were not many good days. They thought it might give her too much of a reason to defect, go straight, but in the end, she’d been considered too great of an asset to kill. They’d trained her to cover it without looking,and any curiosity she’d had about what the mark said was squashed during the three days of isolated evaluation after getting her Mark, while they debated killing her.

But there was always a small part of her that wondered... what would her soulmate think of her right now? Snapping a man’s neck between her ankles, learning to differentiate poisons through smell, and building up an immunity to every poison known to man, and a few known only to birds? An assassin, and the highest ranking member of the Black Widow program?

When the questions ate away at her, she would spend hours perfecting the technique she used to cover the words on the back of her neck.

 _It doesn’t matter_. She told herself.

_It can’t matter._

When she escaped the program, blowing up the building and setting them back 50 years, she ignored the tiny voice in the back of her head that wondered what her soulmate would think of her now. The part of her that wondered if she’d done it because of her soulmate.

_It doesn’t matter._

_It never will_.

She became a freelance killer, allowing herself to get caught every now and again, so that people would know who she was. What she was capable of. So that people could know who to hire, when they needed a problem to disappear.

The last surviving Widow of the 1984 set.

Then she was caught. Threatened with her life.

She laughed in the archer’s face. It seemed to surprise him. He offered her a second chance. Save a scientist from an assassin and his other captors, and her slate would be wiped clean.

She forgot the archer’s face, knowing she likely would never see him again.

But she took the job anyway.

She tried her damndest to save him, too.

But as she stood above the scientist’s body, his blood staining her hands, staring down at the only man she’d ever tried to save, trying to stop her own bleeding, she knew that her slate would never be clean.

She came to a sharp conclusion.

It didn’t matter who her soulmate was. She didn’t care anymore.

Whoever it was, wherever they were, they deserved better than Natasha Romanov, hired gun, the last surviving Widow.

She went back to the archer and tried to forget.

But then Nick Fury came along, the closest thing she’d had to family since Ivan, far before the Widow Program. And when he showed her a picture of Tony Stark at a press conference, flanked by his best friend and his secretary, and told her that he was her next mission, ice spread up her spine and made her soulmark ache.

She didn’t want this mission.

She went anyway.

 

Natasha’s palms weren’t sweating. But, if she’d had less training at keeping her emotions in check, she would have run over the cliff’s edge before she let herself get on that plane.

But she was the Black Widow, dammit, she wasn’t afraid of anything!

But what would it be like, she wondered, having Tony Stark for a soulmate? That had to be why her Mark had reacted when she’d seen the photo, and heard his name in the briefing room, right?

She ignored the open web browser on the miniature Stark-Tech laptop and watched the ground steadily get closer.

She ran a finger along the top joint of her spine, where she knew the Mark sat, covered by makeup, a perfect cover up job by hands made expert through years of practice.

It was a habit that she hadn’t indulged in since they’d let her out of isolated containment, three days after receiving the Mark on her sixteenth birthday. A habit she hadn’t indulged in since she’d forced herself to forget the feeling of the words burning into her skin.

As far as anyone knew, she didn’t have a soulmark.

She didn’t have a soulmate.

Every now and again she thought of asking Clint to read it, just so she knew what it was, but-

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. What if she’d killed them?

What if she was going to?

The plane touched down, jostling her out of her thoughts.

_My name is Natalie Rushman._

_I am one of many who were interviewed to be Pepper Potts’ personal assistant._

_The work will not be easy, and I might meet my soulmate-_

No.

_The work will not be easy, but it is worth the risk for the opportunity to clean some of the names from my ledger._

I’m doing this for the greater good, she thought, ending the mantra she’d been taught to get into character. Not everything the Widow program taught her was steeped in evil. She fought down the nausea climbing up her throat.

One person was not worth jeopardizing the mission.

Even if he might be her soulmate.

She took a deep breath and got off the plane.

 _I am Natalie Rushman_ she reminded herself, _I am strong enough to handle a silly playboy and whatever antics he is going to get himself into._

Pepper Potts welcomed her with a polite handshake. She was pretty, in an understated way. Her makeup wasn't too showy, her hair pulled back into a no nonsense sort of ponytail. Which, Natasha conceded, was almost certainly the only way to deal with Tony Stark. Her suit was tailored to the latest style and pressed within an inch of its life. She had a clipboard under one arm and her shoulders were held with confidence and pride. She was very beautiful.

Natasha was saying so only because she needed all of the details for the mission.

“Thank you so much for coming down here on such short notice, Ms. Rushman.” She said with a smile. Her words sounded strange in Natasha’s ears, like they were magnified, or echoing towards her through water. She forced herself to respond.

“Believe me, Ma'am, the pleasure is mine.” She said smoothly. A second of _something_ crossed Pepper's face, but it was gone in the blink of an eye, so Natasha filed it away for future contemplation. She had bigger problems than her cute boss.

 

Her soulmate had a death wish. That was the only explanation that Natasha could come up with, as she walked with a fuming Pepper Potts to Tony Stark’s hospital room.

“-only light bruising, as far as preliminary examinations show, suspected broken ribs-”

“это пиздец” Natasha muttered, low enough that Pepper couldn’t hear. Natasha knew it should worry her, how often she found herself acting like-well, herself, around Pepper, given that she was meant to be Natalie Rushman, personal assistant, extraordinaire, and not Natasha Romanov, ex-assassin-turned-informant.

“That’s enough, thank you.” She heard Pepper saying, and the nurse turned and walked away as fast as his legs would carry him. Natasha was pretty sure she heard him squeak in fear, as well. She felt the ghost of a smile on her face. Pepper Potts was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

They turned into the room that the nurse had indicated, and found Tony out of his bed and unhooked from the heart monitor. He appeared to be routinely destroying every piece of machinery in the room.

“Unbelievable.” Pepper snapped, before turning on her heel and walking back out of the room, presumably to apologize.

“What? What did I do?” Tony asked, directing his question at Natasha, who raised an eyebrow at the technical carnage at his feet. “Oh. I’m making it- _Pep, I’m making it better!_ ” He directed the last sentence at the door over Natasha’s shoulder, which was absolutely fine, as Natasha was quite distracted by the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and right in front of her, in a perfect circle around his arc reactor, were his Words.

She didn’t mean to read them, at first.

But then she did.

And she read them again.

_Sorry if I seem skeptical, but the last time I worked with a Stark, things turned out less than amicably._

Tony was wearing a bitter smile when she finally tore her eyes away.

“Promising, aren’t they?”

“Do you know who says them?” Natasha asked, fighting her way through the waves of

 _It’s not him, he’s not your soulmate_ and every variation thereof that were attempting to short-circuit her brain.

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure he’s not interested.” Tony averted his eyes, turning a screw from the heart monitor over in his hands.

“How can you know? Isn’t risking it supposed to be-worth it?”

“You haven’t met yours.” It wasn’t a question. Tony knew, or thought he did. Natasha sat on the edge of the bed, focusing on the pile of discarded technology at her feet as she responded.

“You know who I am, I’m sure you found out where I came from, Tony. That kind of life discourages soulmates. Nearly all of the recruits for my program were born without soulmates.”

“So do you not have one?” Natasha ran her fingers over where she knew the Mark was.

“Reading my soulmark would not have been conducive to the environment.” Sheparroted. She knew it sounded like a cop-out, knew exactly what kind of excuse it was, because it had been spoon-fed to her for years as she trained in the Red Room.

“So you- you could have already met them? But, if you’re on the side of the good guys, why not check now? Don’t you deserve to be happy?” Natasha stood, walking over to the window, hating that what he was saying was getting to her. Hating this entire conversation, but knowing that, now that she’d started it, she would need to finish it.

“I was an assassin, Tony. I may have met them already. I may have killed them. And-and if I haven’t, if I _didn’t_ , what kind of life would they have, with a hired gun as a soulmate?” Her fingernails, normally perfectly manicured, were breaking through the skin of her palms to try and stop her hands from shaking.

“Isn’t risking it supposed to be worth it, Agent Romanov?” Tony replied, parroting her words back to her. She blanched, but turned to look at him anyway.

“Don’t you deserve to be happy?” She replied with a pointed look at his own soulmark, before marching past him and out the door.

 

“Can you even get drunk?” Clint asked, his voice carrying through the shitty apartment from the kitchenette to where Natasha was lying prone on the floor, her fingers tangled in Lucky’s fur. The dog was dozing, snuffling occasionally in his sleep, probably dreaming of hunting pizza, or something.

“Dunno. Figured... worth a shot?” She said, her words slurring slightly. He might not believe she could get drunk, but whatever she was, right now it wanted her to be on the ground. Standing was far too much effort. Clint was silent, and for a moment she wondered if she’d actually said it out loud, until she heard his wheezing gasps of laughter.

“Worth a shot.” He repeated. Natasha heard a few clicking noises and an alarming beep as the coffee maker began to brew. She wrinkled her nose. Clint made the worst coffee. He walked back into the room and sat beside her head, maneuvering her head into his lap.

“You make the worst coffee.” She told him, wriggling her shoulders so she was settled more comfortably.

“It’s a good thing you and I aren’t soulmates, then, because I think you’d leave me for a coffee bean farmer.”

“Probably.” Natasha agreed in a murmur. She yawned widely, wondering, as she so often had that day, who her soulmate really was, if not Tony Stark.

Part of her almost wished that it was Clint. They understood each other, understood the work. She was comfortable enough around him to let her guard down, knowing that he’d had more than enough chances to kill her, and that he wouldn’t.

But she’d seen his words, wrapped around his left wrist, a testimony to the life that he wasn’t sure either of them could have.

“Clint?” She prompted. He didn’t answer, so she craned her neck to look up at him, and when her vision settled, she realized he’d fallen asleep, his head lolling forward onto his chest. She rolled her eyes, immediately regretted it, and then lifted her hand to poke at his cheek. “ _Cliiiint_.” He snorted, blinking his eyes back open and she affected her fourth most pouty face. He rolled his eyes and flicked her on the forehead.

“What?”

“I want you to read my Words.” Silence washed over the two of them and he froze completely.

“Tash-”

“Please?” What Tony had said in the hospital, about her deserving to be happy, about it being worth it, maybe, had affected her more than she cared to admit.

“Are you sure?”

“I know their names, Clint.” Natasha closed her eyes tightly. “Everyone I’ve ever killed, for the Red Room, for the KGB, for SHIELD. I know all of their names, and the ones that got a chance to talk- I have the first things they said to me. I haven’t forgotten a single one, and I need to stop memorizing it, I need to stop wondering...” She took a deep breath. “I need to know. But I can’t do it on my own. And not just because I can’t get a good angle. I need to hear it from someone I can trust not to lie to me about it.” She opened her eyes again, looking up at Clint’s stricken face. “Also, I’m really drunk. So.”

“Okay.” Clint said, continuing to stare at her. “Okay.” He said again, more firmly. He helped Natasha into a sitting position and moved her hair away from her neck. “I’m gonna go get some makeup remover. I think Kate left some last time she and her friends crashed here.” She heard him stand, but he didn’t walk away. She really hoped he didn’t ask if she was sure again. But when he spoke, she was grateful to hear that he was taking this seriously. “Don’t puke on my dog while I’m gone.” Natasha hummed, but otherwise didn’t make any promises. Part of her was already screaming that this was a bad idea. She should just jump out of the window and escape.

But the other, more rational part of her knew that that was conditioned into her. And also that she was too drunk to even stand, right now, let alone manage a two story jump, even if the neighbors were used to Clint doing stupid shit like that.

Before she could sort through the arguments and make an informed, sober decision (ha), Clint came back and sat behind her again.

“Ready?”

“Do it.” The words were falling from her lips before she even had time to process the question.

She was ready.

She could do this.

She felt like she might actually puke on Lucky, and she pursed her lips tightly as she felt Clint carefully wipe away at the foundation on the back of Natasha’s neck with a tissue.

“What do they say?”

“Learn patience, Tash. I don’t have them fully uncovered yet-okay.” Natasha went completely still. She still wasn’t sure she wanted to hear. “Okay they say, and I’m quoting, ‘Thank you so much for coming down here on such short notice, Ms. Rushman.’” Natasha felt her eyes widen, because _oh._ Everything from the past three months slowly realigned itself with an almost audible _click_. “Hang on, isn’t Rushman your alias for the Stark review?”

“Oh, God.”

“Natasha?”

“Pepper.” She shut her eyes again, trying to force away the images of Pepper’s face that flashed across her vision. She hadn’t realized that she’d noticed so many of Pepper’s faces. Pepper wasn’t even really part of the mission, just a way to get to Stark, but she’d still grown closer to the woman. She’d figured it was friendship, but- “I’ve been such an ass, I totally blew it, Clint.” Memories of Pepper’s face as Natasha flirted with Tony, trying to get information from him, trying to get data for the ridiculous review Fury had forced her to do.

“Natasha,” Clint said gently, walking around to kneel in front of her, “As the world’s leading expert on ‘totally blowing it’ and don’t even think about making that joke-”

“You’d let Kate make that joke.”

“Kate would have already said it. As the world’s leading expert on- _bad_ situation, let me be the first to tell you that you haven’t blown it. Trust me.” Natasha looked at him, saw the earnestness in his eyes and nodded, still frowning. She could feel tears brewing behind her eyelids and she sniffed, trying to get rid of them.

“Is your shitty coffee ready yet?”

“Probably.”

“Do you have any clean mugs?”

“Natasha, I’m insulted, have you ever been in my apartment before? Of course I don’t have any clean mugs.”

Natasha followed him into the kitchen anyway.

 

 

Pepper was waiting for her when Natasha came into work the next morning. Her smile was a little too stiff and her posture a little to rigid to be natural. Natasha couldn’t quite tell if she was angry or nervous, but either way, she began to run the worst case scenarios the second Pepper’s eyes met her.

The most likely option was that Tony had let slip that she wasn’t actually Natalie Rushman, and her cover was going to be blown before she even had a chance to talk to Pepper about being-

Soulmates.

The realization that she was meant to be with Pepper had put their every interaction into perspective, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t checked her Words sooner.

Okay, yes she could. Knowing that they were on the back of her neck, uncovered by makeup since the first day they appeared on her skin was making her breath short and her skin crawl. It felt wrong, but at the same time, she knew she couldn’t go back to covering them now that she knew what they said, now that she knew whose they were. So she powered through, giving back into her recurring habit of running her fingers across the bare skin, instead.

“Natalie,” Pepper began, picking at her fingernails without looking. Natasha wanted to take her hand and explain everything right there, but she needed to see her mission through. She would finish the report, submit it to Fury and then beg for Pepper to give her a chance.

It wasn’t a foolproof plan. It wasn’t even a good plan, but it was all that she could come up with. “I was wondering if you would like to accompany me to the Stark Expo tonight.” Natasha blinked, forcing a polite smile into place.

“I thought we were already going?” Pepper squared her shoulders, steeling herself for what she was about to say.

“I wasn’t asking if you wanted to go in order to stake out what kind of competition Justin Hammer will prove to be, I was asking if you wanted to go as my date.”

Natasha couldn’t say yes fast enough.

Her report was almost finished, she could tell Pepper everything tonight at the expo. It would help if Natasha explained sooner, rather than later, too.

It would all go perfectly.

 

It did all go perfectly, Natasha thought. _Until_ Anton Vanko decided to crash the party. When the inept security guards at the expo locked onto the signal, Natasha knew it was her cue, as much as she didn’t want it to be.

“Hammer industries-” the guard on the left said, and she turned, blazing past Pepper, knowing that if she were to stop, she would let the entire mission go. But Pepper didn’t let her get far.

“Natalie, where are you going?” She called after Natasha, the hurt and confusion clear in her voice.

“That’s not my name.” Natasha replied, closing her hands into biting fists. She turned back to face her soulmate, knowing full well that what she was about to say would break whatever Natasha knew was blooming between them. Pepper shook her head, clearly not understanding. “My name is Natasha Romanov. I am one of S.H.I.E.L.Ds top security agents. I was sent here to evaluate your friend, Tony Stark. My boss and I saved his life long enough for him to find a permanent solution, which I assume he has, considering he’s running around in the Iron Man suit again. And right now, I’m going to find Anton Vanko, and I’m going to kill him.”

That was not, strictly speaking, true. But, if she wanted to save Pepper from a life shackled to an assassin (and how could it be anything else? How could she have thought she ever could be anything else? She was a spy, and a killer. Pepper would leave when she found out what Natasha had done, and would continue to do, or she would stay, miserable, because they were soulmates. Either way, Pepper would leave, and Natasha would be alone, right back where she started.) then she would need to embellish, just a bit. Natasha took in Pepper’s shocked, confused, and then downright furious expression before she turned and let herself get lost in the crowd.

She needed to hit something.

The absolute last thing that Natasha expected later that night, as she sat in her hotel room looking at her packed bag and waiting on her recon call from Fury or Clint, was a call from Tony Stark. She answered, out of a latent habit of being Pepper’s personal assistant (soulmate. Ex-soulmate? Was that a thing?), but she didn’t say anything in greeting. Tony didn’t really give her a chance, though.

“What did you do?” Tony hissed through the phone. Natasha was, for once, struck speechless.

“I don’t-”

“Why is Pepper pacing in my living room?”

“Because-” Natasha searched her brain, “you’re friends?”

“Nope.”

“Because she nearly got blown up when Vanko went nuclear?”

“Guess. Again.” Tony snarled, and _oh_ , this wasn’t a question, Tony knew.

Tony knew that Pepper knew.

Tony was angry.

Looks like her report wasn’t quite as finished as she’d thought.

“I might have... told her who I was...”

“Oh really?!”

“Yes.” Natasha needed a drink. She eyed the minibar longingly, even though she knew it wasn’t a good idea.

“I am going to text you an address. You are going to go there.”

“My mission is complete, Stark, there’s no reason for me to stay here.”

“Your soulmate thinking you want nothing to do with her isn’t reason enough for you?” Tony asked, his voice going flat. He hung up before she could make another excuse, and she was left with a sinking feeling in her gut and a dial tone in her ear.

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

 _Derr’mo_.

 _Otva li_.

This was not going to go well.

The phone buzzed with the promised text message, and she stood. Stark may not have been her boss, but he’d given her a direct order.

She was good at following orders.

She went in the suit, hidden beneath a long coat, ready to hop onto a waiting helicopter at any moment. She texted Clint as backup, just in case, even though she knew that he was currently stationed in New Mexico. He’d texted her that morning before he got on the plane.

_-Don’t forget to feed the dog!! Xoxo And Talk about your Problems!!_

_-Feed your own damn dog, Clint._

_\- :(_

_-Fine._

How simple things had been not twenty four hours ago. She’d been about to tell her soulmate exactly what she meant to Natasha, and now she was asking for backup in the event her soulmate tried to stab her with the stem of a champagne glass.

The location turned out to be a park, advantageous for Natasha in case she needed to get away (lots of open space), but hardly a decent place for reconnaissance. She would have almost no warning with the amount of people here, and the dark would make it difficult to read Pepper’s expressions and body language.

She ran her fingers across the back of her neck.

“You know, I never liked the name Natalie. I didn’t think it fit you, now I guess I know why, Natasha.” The girl in question shut her eyes. Pepper was behind her, using her I’m-The-Boss voice. That wasn’t a good start, but when Natasha turned around, her soulmate didn’t look angry. She looked nervous. She looked upset, still.

She looked relieved.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.” Pepper said, stepping closer, her voice quiet. “I have something I need to tell you.”

Natasha almost opened her mouth to ruin it, the little bit of trust that Pepper was giving her. Almost. But she heard Tony’s voice in her ears, reminding her that it was time to try and be happy. She heard Clint in the back of her head, telling her to “Chill, Nat. You don’t always have to be a ticking time bomb.” She kept her mouth shut, her face carefully blank.

“We’re soulmates.” A weight that Natasha didn’t know she’d been carrying dropped off of her shoulders, a vice uncurled from around her heart. She ducked her head and smiled.

“I know.”

“You- Tony said-”

“Tony was telling the truth. I looked the other day, and I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell you the truth without hating me. I was going to tell you at the Expo, but that didn’t go exactly to plan.” Pepper licked her lips.

“Can I see them?”

Natasha didn’t like turning her back to people. It put her on edge, it made her ready to attack in seconds.

But when Pepper asked, she didn’t hesitate. She turned around and pulled her hair away from her neck, revealing the bare words written there.

Pepper gave a small gasp and reached out. Natasha could feel the heat from her fingertips as they hovered millimeters away from her skin. She leaned back into Pepper’s hand, and Pepper took the invitation for what it was, tracing the curves of the letters. Natasha shivered. It was a strange feeling, like they were being burned into her skin all over again, but this time it wasn’t sudden, it wasn’t horrifying and painful. It felt right.

Pepper drew her hand away from Natasha’s neck, moving it to the other girl’s shoulder and turning her around.

“We’re not okay. I’m going to need you to tell me everything from now on. You’re an assassin, check. You came here to evaluate my best friend for what he calls a “super secret boyband” but probably isn’t, and I want the truth.”

“That’s going to take a long time, Pepper. And most of it isn’t good.” Natasha said, a final, pleading warning.

“We have the rest of our lives, Natasha. If we want to make this work, we have to start somewhere.”

Natasha breathed a sigh of relief.

“Come on, then. I have a dog to feed. We can start talking on the way.” Pepper dropped her hand from Natasha’s shoulder hesitantly, holding it close enough to Natasha’s hand that she could take it if she wanted to, but far enough away that it could be brushed off. Natasha twined their fingers together. She didn’t ask to see Pepper’s marks in return, she knew that it would take a while for the other girl to fully trust her, and she wanted Pepper to want her to see them. She didn’t want Pepper to ever feel obligated about their relationship. It could wait. They had time.

As they left the park, they both resolutely ignored Tony cheering and giving them a thumbs up.

Later, after Natasha had explained, starting at the beginning and going until she had no secrets left inside of her, but glossing over the more gory details of her life as an assassin, after they’d stopped talking, having real conversations and discovering the parts of each other neither of them had ever hoped to know. Only then, when Pepper was asleep on clean sheets in Clint’s bedroom, Natasha added a line to the ‘evaluation notes’ portion of her report for Fury.

_Tony Stark is deceptively loyal, and, to the surprise of no one in this room, a very good man._

  
_Unfortunately, despite my personal fondness for the man in question, I still would not recommend him for the Avengers Initiative, as he does not play well with others._

**Author's Note:**

> Might write another part focusing on what happens when they're comfortable enough to actually start a relationship.  
> As always you can come prompt me on tumblr! my url has been changed to @jessequickster


End file.
